Let's drink Pocari Sweat

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back

to the Night Water podcast.

It has been a while.

Today on the show, I'm going to taste and react

to Pocari Sweat, the famed Japanese sports drink,

live in the studio, the studio being my home office.

This is the Night Water podcast,

the official audio companion to the Night Water newsletter.

Imagine this, you wake up in the middle of the night,

you're parched, you stumble out of bed

and towards the kitchen,

seeking the cold touch of fresh water on your lips,

and you pour yourself a glass and guzzle it down.

Nothing has ever tasted so good.

Your mind and your body are completely refreshed,

and you are ready to return to bed

for a blissful, dreamless sleep.

That is what it is like to read Night Water.

It is a late night niche culture newsletter

that comes out most Tuesdays at 11 p.m. Eastern.

I cover everything from vegan junk food

to the Pokemon cards at McDonald's,

to the fake hospital where Cabbage Patch Kids are born,

to old time radio stations, to Japanese sports drinks.

Who am I?

My name is Adam Cecil.

I write Night Water and I am your humble host today.

And you can find out more about me

and the newsletter at nightwater.email.

That is a URL.

And just go to that URL and click on FAQs in the menu.

Enough preamble.

Let's move on to Pocari Sweat.

- Did you know that even while sitting,

you may be losing fluids that are essential to the body?

Pocari Sweat helps replenish these important bodily fluids.

Drink Pocari Sweat.

Easily absorb to quickly rehydrate your body.

Water is not enough.

♪ Pocari Sweat ♪

- Long time Night Water readers know

that I love a sports drink here in the UK called Lucozade.

I've written two articles ranking

my favorite Lucozade flavors at this point.

I might even be able to wrangle a third

if there's enough popular demand.

Anybody?

Pocari Sweat is a little bit different though.

So there's only one flavor to try.

And if you didn't know any better,

you'd think you were looking at water.

In fact, the reason I wanted to try Pocari Sweat

in the first place is a tweet.

This is from Marko Jukic.

He's got a ton of followers actually.

He's some kind of VC investor focused on space travel,

I think, which is probably why Elon promoted him

into my feed.

He tweeted in August, quote,

"I don't know how they do it,

"but you can add inventing the perfect sports drink

"to the list of Japan's accomplishments.

"Uncanny.

"Tastes like how water tastes in a dream."

And then he's attached a picture of Pocari Sweat.

Naturally, my interest was piqued.

Sports drink, Japan, dream water.

How could I not give it a try?

- Life is a game of moments.

And every one of them matters.

(ding)

Squeeze every drop out of life.

Put it back with Pocari Sweat.

- Let's go back in time a little bit

to the origins of Pocari Sweat.

A lot of this information comes from some great reporting

from Emiko Jozuka at CNN

and Julian Ryall at South China Morning Post.

I will link both of their articles in the show notes

if you wanna read them.

Okay, throw your mind back.

The year is sometime in the 1970s.

You are a Japanese pharmaceutical researcher

named Rokuro Harima,

and you're on a business trip to Mexico.

You get the worst diarrhea of your life.

I mean, this is next level.

I'm gonna die on the Oregon Trail, levels of diarrhea.

And this is in the official record, mind you.

I'm not exaggerating.

I might be exaggerating a little bit.

But you go to the hospital and the doctor says,

"Okay, you'll be fine.

"Just drink these sodas and you'll feel better.

"You just need to rehydrate."

So you're sitting there drinking your fizzy sodas,

and you see a doctor pop open a pouch of IV fluid

and drink straight from the bag

to rehydrate after a long surgery.

What are you thinking there in that scenario?

Well, if you're Harima, you're thinking,

"Wow, I've got a great idea for a drink."

So Harima works for Otsuka Pharmaceutical,

which makes IV fluid in Japan.

And they also make a health drink,

a vitamin C drink called Oronamin C

that Harima actually worked on.

He helped refine the flavor.

And this is an absolute perfect storm of events,

right person at the right time to create

not only Pocari Sweat,

but the entire sports drink market in Japan.

See, Japan does not have Gatorade at the time.

It does not have Lucozade.

Outside of alcohol, there was soda, there was juice,

and that was pretty much it.

There was a wide open space for tasty IV fluid.

So what's actually in Pocari Sweat?

It's mostly water,

some of the same elements that we lose when we sweat.

So that's stuff like sodium ion, potassium ion,

calcium ion, magnesium ion.

There's a reason that it says ion supply drink

on the bottles.

You add some sugar and some citrus flavoring

and you've got yourself a batch of Pocari Sweat.

Fun fact, the name Pocari Sweat does not mean anything.

Post-World War II, European languages

were seen as quite posh.

English slogans in particular were very trendy.

Pocari was made up to sound vaguely European

and sweat is sweat.

The more you know.

I know what you're thinking.

What does Pocari Sweat taste like?

We need to know.

I love that energy.

Keep it up. And I will taste Pocari Sweat

live on this prerecorded podcast right after this break.

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not just the concept of drinking water at night,

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Not only will your paid subscription

help me pay the bills around here,

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and buying Pocari Sweat,

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All right, let's get back to Pocari Sweat.

There are a ton of great Pocari Sweat TV commercials

on YouTube from its home country, Japan,

and other markets they operate in like Korea, Nigeria,

and even the US, where Pocari Sweat has been attempting

to break into the sports drink market.

I think my favorites

are these old Cindy Crawford commercials.

They're giving a kind of high fantasy,

Xena: Warrior Princess cum Heavy Metal vibe,

if you remember the giant bird thing from Heavy Metal.

In one of them, she's practicing her sword craft

when a mutant rabbit gives her a can of Pocari Sweat.

And when a mutant rabbit gives you a can of Pocari Sweat,

you're gonna argue with the mutant rabbit?

No.

While I was on YouTube looking for Pocari Sweat commercials,

I came across this guy.

His username is jacobfuckingjones.

- Which of course I am quite excited to do.

I haven't had too many cigarettes today,

so I certainly am looking forward

to enjoying one of my Winston Classic Red cigarettes

from Mexico, but I am also quite excited

to drink my Pocari Sweat Japanese sports drink

in today's video as well.

I went to Japan a couple months ago.

- The title of this video is,

Smoking Cigarettes and Drinking a Japanese Sports Drink

at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon.

And that's exactly what you get.

It's about 20 minutes of our man Jacob shooting the shit,

telling us about his trip to Japan,

where he found Pocari Sweat in Mexico, where he lives,

recounting its Mexican origin story, including the diarrhea,

and then enjoying his cigarettes and Pocari Sweat.

- Pocari Sweat definitely is not the first drink

that comes to mind, so I'm looking forward

to seeing how it actually does pair.

But without further ado, let's go ahead

and get one of my Winston Classic Red cigarettes

all out of the pack, and let's go and get it all lit up,

so then I can go ahead and drink some Pocari Sweat

while smoking a cigarette, as I promised in the title,

and find out whether Pocari Sweat actually pairs well

with a cigarette or not.

I'm not expecting it to be the best pairing ever,

I will admit, but I'm looking forward

to finding out nonetheless.

Without further ado, let's go ahead

and get this cigarette right here all lit up.

Yes sir, yes sir, you know I'm saying I'm saying.

- I'm not a big cigarette or tobacco guy in general,

but I've gotta say, this is great, great stuff,

and this is what YouTube should be for,

not that satanic MrBeast stuff, and really,

this is what podcasting should be too,

fewer far-right influencers and more people

smoking cigarettes and drinking a Japanese sports drink

in the afternoon.

And Night Water is here to change the podcasting industry

bit by bit, so let's get into it.

I thought it would be easy to find Pocari Sweat near me.

I live near maybe four or five various Asian supermarkets

covering a lot of the countries

that Pocari Sweat is available in,

but none of them had Pocari Sweat

when I went looking, absolutely devastating.

So I special ordered a few bottles from a UK importer,

and of course, the second I do that,

I went and found Pocari Sweat in two Asian supermarkets

in the center of London, one of which is across the street

from my favorite movie theater here,

the Prince Charles Cinema, couldn't believe it.

In any case, I now know where to go to get Pocari Sweat.

I hope someday that Otsuka brings Pocari Sweat

to the UK themselves.

If you're in the US, you can go to trypocari.com.

There is a map with retailers who carry it.

The Japanese grocery store I used to go to in Brooklyn

has it, very convenient, if I had found out

about Pocari Sweat a couple of years ago.

All right, I've made you wait long enough.

It's time for me to take a sip of Pocari Sweat.

- (singing in foreign language)

- I've got my bottle of Pocari Sweat right here.

This particular bottle is from Korea.

Let's get a nice, record the opening.

I thought that would make a more satisfying sound,

if I'm being honest.

That would be a nice like, you know.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, that's really nice.

Especially after recording each section

of this podcast multiple times, doing different takes.

That is really refreshing on my vocal cords.

It's a very subtle taste, very subtle citrusy taste.

Not overpowering at all.

Otherwise, it just tastes like a really nice, fresh water.

(sipping)

Yeah, it's not like a Lucozade or a Gatorade at all.

Like it doesn't, it really feels like water

with like an additive versus a completely different drink.

Which I think is to its success.

You know, I don't always want, you know,

something that tastes super fake.

I want like water, but in a dream.

I don't know if I feel like it's like,

the way that water tastes to me in a dream.

I think water in a dream to me does not

have any citrus flavor, at least in my dreams.

But it does taste really good.

Yeah, that's great.

It's very refreshing.

It's an extremely, extremely refreshing drink.

What's it say?

On the bottle it says, "Picari Sweat is a drink

"which supplies water and electrolytes

"lost through perspiration.

"Picari Sweat is quickly absorbed into the body tissues

"due to its fine osmolality,

"and contains electrolytes

"for replenishing body fluids.

"Picari Sweat is thus highly recommended as a beverage

"for such activities as sports, physical labor,

"after a hot bath, and even as an eye opener in the morning."

That would be really good, actually.

It's like a nice morning drink.

If you're not into coffee or you're trying

to get off coffee, maybe Pocari Sweat is the way to go.

Yeah, I think after a nice, you know,

if you're out there doing your adult sports,

can't go wrong with Pocari Sweat.

Definitely feel like it's gonna perk you up.

I think the real question is,

should you replace your regular night water,

you know, your night water, plain night water,

with Picari Sweat?

And it is extremely refreshing,

but I do wonder if maybe it's a bit too refreshing,

you know, like if it has a bit too much,

even the subtle citrus flavor might be too much,

it might perk you up a bit too much,

versus plain Jane night water.

But I don't know, you could try it, you could try it at home.

You can also, in addition to Pocari Sweat

in a bottle or a can, you can get Pocari Sweat powder.

So you can make your own Pocari Sweat at home

to various concentrations.

You could dilute it if you were afraid

of it being a little too much, which I am.

But yeah, I'd say, you know, it's worth experimenting,

but I wouldn't be rushing to make it a nighttime drink.

It's definitely more of a morning,

morning and after activity kind of drink.

Oh, if only I had a nice cigarette to enjoy it with.

Thanks for listening to Night Water today,

as I tasted Pocari Sweat.

Recording podcasts and drinking a Japanese sports drink

at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday evening.

Nothing better than that.

My name is Adam Cecil.

You can find me @fakeadamcecil on Twitter and BlueSky.

I write Night Water, a niche culture newsletter

at nightwater.email.

Subscribe for free today,

or become a paying Day Soda subscriber

to help support more purchases of Japanese sports drinks.

You can find Night Water on social media as well

on BlueSky.

It is nightwater.email.

And on Instagram, it's @nightwatermemes.

Links to both of those and various Mastodon options

in the show notes.

I'll see you next time.

Until then.

Yes, sir, yes, sir.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm saying.